This is one of those centers kids love coming to. They love hearing books, and the funnier the better. This is a center designed to grow a students love of books, to practice interactive listening skills, and to even write beginning book reports!
This center consists of a couple of sets of headphones, a book on cd or tape, and a quick handout at the end. This is one of the more straight forward centers, but it is VERY important that you go through all the steps of using the CD player with your students and talk about sharing the book with each other. It is also a good idea to talk about how when you have headphones on you don’t have to yell just because you can’t hear what people are saying. 
Just trust me on this one. Another thing I have always done is to put stickers on the buttons they should use, like a big ‘p’ sticker on the play button, or a stop sign on the stop button. I have found this makes it easier for kids to use the cd player.
Students will read their book, and then when they are finished they should color a picture of something they saw in their book. Use Teachable Method’s free handout, or make your own based on the book you are reading that week.
The biggest problem with this center is where to get all these books on CD/Tape. The best place I have found is through Scholastic Book Orders. Just get the monthly sampler of four, and before you know it, you will have an entire set of themed books for your classroom!
I am receiving a lot of emails about literacy centers, so I have decided to put my literacy center curriculum up for you to read! The most important things to remember about literacy centers is to change them often, don’t let students spend too much time in each center, and make sure they are self directed and accountable. I touched on these centers in our free perfect kindergarten day handout, but I will be going into more detail here.
For starters you need to decide what kinds of centers you want to have in your classroom. A few great centers are listed below.
- Listening Center
- Writing Center
- Library
- Computers
- Read the Room
- Math and Science Center
- Art
- Pocket Chart
- ABC’s Center
- Browsing Boxes
Ten is a good number of centers because it gives students variety throughout the week, but it also forces them to finish up anything they might not have finished up the first time around.
In the next few chapters I will be going into each of these centers in great detail and giving you all sorts of fun ideas for them.
If you don’t have a listening center, you should. Take all those scholastic book order points you have accumulated and spend them on listening center books. If you just buy the little collection each month, after a year you will have an entire listening center all based around your themes and everything.
One of the most important things to remember in centers is to make sure you are holding your kids accountable for the centers. A lot of times we let the kids have fun in centers, and we just totally forget that we need to make sure they are actually DOING the work they are supposed to do. Something as simple as this listening center can make sure they are doing their work, and if centers are supposed to be 15 minutes long and your book is only nine or ten, then you need something to keep those kids occupied for the last few minutes of the center. It is all about making sure your students are never sitting there with nothing in front of them. This is the age of TV on Demand and Internet games at the touch of their little fingertips, don’t try to fight it! Instead just plan ahead and be prepared for it by making sure that they have stuff to do during their down time.
Click here for your free Listening Center Handout